


In Closer Bonds Than Happiness Ever Can

by zarabithia



Series: Mercy  Universe [3]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-05
Updated: 2007-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Connor had never planned on being a parent.  Dick and Roy's deaths changed that.





	In Closer Bonds Than Happiness Ever Can

Connor had never had a father growing up. In place of the paternal figure some other children were lucky enough to have, Connor had the shadow of a legend, and shoes he struggled to have the right to stand up beside, let alone fill. In many respects, Connor's relationship with Ollie never grew beyond that, despite the familial terms and the frequent hugs.  
  
_["It sounds odd, but everything I learned about being a dad, I learned from the old man."_  
"Even with all the times he wasn't around when you needed him to be?"  
"Hell, those are the times I learned the most from him. That's when he taught me the importance of sticking **together** as a family, you know?"]  
  
Connor had never had any intention of raising any children of his own for that specific reason. He had no idea how it was supposed to be done, beyond a few lingering memories of the childhood ideals he'd once had. The only person with whom he'd wanted to settle down and be with in the kind of steady relationship that a child deserved -  
  
_["You think Ollie's proud he passed that particular trait down to me? Do you think **I'm** proud that he passed his inability to stick with one person down to me? Don't you think I know damn well how much my baby girl pays each time I can't make the person I want stay with me? I'd change that in a heart beat, Connor."]_  
  
-was Kyle, and Kyle, when he had still been a part of Connor's life, had never wanted children. Kyle's father issues ran far deeper than Connor's, and Kyle had made certain from the moment they'd met that Connor knew how he felt about children.  
  
Connor hadn't had any problem with that. He saw no place for children in his life, and if that ever changed, he had a niece he loved and could spoil in the place of any offspring he might have had.  
  
In the life that might have been, Connor had been content to be happy with that arrangement.  
  
_["Guess what, Daddy? Today Uncle Kyle taught me how to draw a_ **shadow**."  
"Oh, yeah? Better stay away from those shadows, squirts. They won't bring you anything but trouble."  
"But Daddy! My superheroes look better fighting when they have a **shadow**. And 'sides, Uncle Dick and Aunt Dinah love the shadows. Why don't you?"]  
  
But fate apparently had different plans.  
  
In retrospect, Connor supposed it was a good thing that Kyle had already passed out of his life by the time the first telephone call came letting him know that his path was forever altered.  
  
The mournful sound of Dinah's muffled wails combined with the broken sobs of his father's voice formed the backdrop of a voice entirely too shaken to properly belong to Superman. That wrongness was somehow just right for the occasion, as that trembling voice told Connor he no longer had a brother.  
  
_["My daddy is in the_ **Justice League** now, Uncle Connor. Aunt Dinah says you used to be in the Justice League too. How come you quit?"  
"I didn't think I was ready yet, Lian."  
"My daddy is ready. He was a Titan for forever. Then an Outsider. Now he's in the Justice League and he's ready for **anything.** "]  
  
Lian's small, insistent hands tugged at his shirt sleeve as he hung up the phone, her innocent and unknowing voice demanding to know if that was Aunt Dinah and if they had found Daddy and Uncle Dick.  
  
Connor pulled her into his arms, onto his hip, and walked her to the couch, a distance that seemed to grow longer with each additional step. His niece didn't speak a word on the way there, but her face stayed fixed on his, as though trying to puzzle out the wrong she didn't quite know before Connor could tell her, and her tiny nails dug deeper into his shirt with each successive step.  
  
By the time he sat them both down on the couch - his legs were far too willing to give in to trust them long enough to stand- the youngest of his family had long since stopped feigning patience. "What's _wrong_ , Uncle Connor?"  
  
_["I've never seen you look remotely frightened in battle. On the contrary, you look like you are enjoying yourself."_  
"Every time I step out that door, I'm terrified I won't come back. I'm scared that I'll make her the orphan my dad made me."  
"Then why do you keep doing it?"  
"Because it's the best way to show my baby girl how to do the right thing. How to make a difference."]  
  
Six years of being the daughter of a superhero gave Lian's voice the tremble of fear that only her experience could tell her a phone call might cause. Connor hated giving into the fear in her voice, and he hated not having the option to lie and tell her it would be okay.  
  
He cradled her small face briefly before he broke her heart.  
  
_["Oh, but you shouldn't feel bad, Uncle Connor. Uncle Dick is my favorite uncle, but he doesn't really count. He's more like... it's kinda like having two daddies. At least, it was before he got sick and had to leave us. But Daddy says Uncle Dick is better now, and we can be a family again."]_  
  
In the weeks immediately following Roy's death, Connor had every intention of handing the care taking duties of Lian over to one of his more qualified family members. Dick Grayson was Lian's legal guardian, but the recovery process for his injuries prevented him from taking custody of her immediately.  
  
Dinah was the next choice, as per Roy's wishes. But the weight of losing a man who had been her son in all ways but blood combined with the guilt the League Chairperson felt for not reaching Dick and Roy in time. The result was a woman barely able to deal with the daughter she was responsible for, let alone the added responsibility Lian would have caused.  
  
Their father... Ollie was too busy reliving every shred of guilt for every mistake he had ever made with Roy to deal with a child.  
  
Connor was listed before Ollie in Roy's wishes anyway.  
  
_["Listen, Connor, Roy doesn't like talking about this, and if he heard me talking to you, he'd never stop going on about 'damn contingency plans,' but it's something we should discuss with you before we drop it in your lap."_  
"What is it, Dick?"]  
  
Connor supposed he should be grateful that the impending ... now canceled wedding of Dinah and his father had finally prompted him to find his own place again. The small apartment occasionally overwhelmed Connor and Lian with the loneliness of the silence brought on by only their shared company. But it was far, far better than trying to deal with the gut-wrenching agony that still poured freely from Dinah, Ollie, and Mia.  
  
He was still there for their family, of course, but the six-year-old's emotional health was a much higher priority. She needed to be in a place that was warm and secure, to counteract every nightmare, tear, and clinging fear that she would lose someone else.  
  
_["If anything should happen to Roy and I both, Dinah knows our wishes. But if she isn't able to take care of Lian... well, we don't want her to end up with Bruce or Ollie."]_  
  
Visiting Dick during his recovery was difficult too. During the first two weeks, all the once strong, stubborn, and loving second father to Connor's niece was able to do was lie in bed and stare back at him.  
  
As they sat in first Dick's hospital room, then his room at the Manor, they were always surrounded by members of the Batclan. Alfred, Tim, and Bruce all took vigilant turns at Dick's bedside, in an attempt to bring Dick back from the despair he'd fallen into after being forced to kill his best friend and companion.  
  
Connor understood their efforts, even as he understood Dick's resisting their efforts. He knew what his brother and Dick had been to each other, known what losing Kyle had done to _him_ , and he couldn't imagine how he would have responded if he'd been forced to make the same decision.  
  
Lian on the other hand just wanted _one_ of her daddies back. Although she tried to be patient, sitting on the bed next to him, telling him about her day and about the flowers she and Aunt Dinah had taken to her Daddy's grave, by the end of every visit, she was once again quiet and clinging to Connor.  
  
At the end of the fourth week, Lian leaned down and kissed her favorite uncle on the cheek before they left. "I need you to come home, Uncle Dick," she pleaded with the kind of truthfulness the adult members of Dick's family couldn't. "Please get better soon."  
  
For a brief moment, Connor watched Batman's face match the shakiness that had been in Superman's voice during the phone call that had changed all their lives before it was replaced by a more resolute, colder mask.  
  
As he and Lian left the Manor that day, Connor hoped for all their sakes that Dick would get better soon.  
  
_["I don't really know anything about taking care of a child, Dick."_  
"Oh, trust me, it's something you get used to." ]  
  
As the weeks wore on, Connor's hope grew. Dick began actually talking to the people surrounding him, and Leslie deemed him well enough to move into his own apartment with heavy supervision.  
  
He seemed to be getting better, and the little girl in Connor's life seemed on the verge of getting one part of her life back to normal. Or as close to it as she would ever get again.  
  
_["I hope it never becomes necessary."_  
"So do I, Connor. But just in case something should happen..."  
"In that case, you have my word that I'll take care of her." ]  
  
When the second phone call came, Lian was napping on the couch beside him. It was Superman once again, with the same shaken voice that made Connor want to hang up before Superman could once again share the news that would ruin their lives.  
  
The ring startled Lian out of sleep.  
  
By the time Connor hung up the phone, her tiny fists were digging into his side again, and her bottom lip quivered slightly as she asked, "Who was it this time?"  
  
_["What do you want to be when you grow up, Lian?"_  
"I want to be a superhero like you, Uncle Connor."]  
  
There was a debate over where Dick's remains should rest. Apparently the debate was settled by Superman, and though Connor wasn't certain exactly why the man had so much sway in that decision, Connor was grateful that Superman both had known Dick well enough to argue against the Gotham burial and was willing to fight for what Dick would have wanted.  
  
They buried Dick next to Roy, after a ceremony in which Superman gave a long speech which had been truthful _once_ about Dick's bravery and warmth. Connor didn't hear most of it, too busy was he trying to sooth the child in his arms and trying not to be angry with the man who had given up far too easily when a child had needed him so badly.  
  
But he did hear the cracks in the voice of the world's strongest man, and he did know that the shakiness in Superman's voice was becoming far too commonplace because of their family.  
  
When the funeral ceremony was over, Connor took Lian home.  
  
He was grateful that both of Lian's fathers were buried in one spot. It would make the pilgrimages to their gravesides easier on her.  
  
_["And just like Uncle Dick."]_  
  
It was decided that Lian needed as much stability as they could give her. To that end, she became Connor's responsibility, and Connor became the parent that he'd never wanted to be.  
  
The visits by the other Arrows and the other former Titans were frequent, but from the day they buried Dick Grayson, Lian became Connor's responsibility.  
  
He had every intention of living up to that responsibility by making sure she wasn't denied either part of the heritage that should have been hers.  
  
_["And just like Grandpa Ollie, Aunt Dinah, Aunt Mia, Grandpa Bats, Uncle Tim ..."]_  
  
Finding the littlest Robin didn't take a lot of time. They'd been friends once, and figuring out where his one-time friend had gone to hide when the last connection he had to humanity had been ripped from him was only mildly difficult.  
  
Making him listen, on the other hand, was another matter all together.  
  
"Sorry, not interested."  
  
Connor wondered, as he followed Robin through the New York streets that had once been Kyle's home, if all Bats were as intrinsically selfish when they were hurt as the first and third Robins were proving themselves to be.  
  
_["I want to kick bad guy butt like **everyone** in my family."]_  
  
"She needs us, Tim. Especially you."  
  
"I'm not Dick."  
  
"And I'm not Roy. But we're all she has."  
  
"Life's full of disappointments. She might as well start learning that now."  
  
It was difficult, when he thought of the nightmares his niece had, of the shouting for both lost fathers that sometimes jerked him from sleep, of the stomach aches that no doctor could cure, not to strike out at Tim for his comment.  
  
But he was hurting too. Connor tried to remember that. "I know you're hurt, Tim. What Dick did wasn't fair to anyone. And it's your choice whether or not you wallow in self pity because of his death, or choose to be stronger because of it. But are you honestly prepared to punish the child because of the pain _you_ have?"  
  
"She's your responsibility. Not mine."  
  
"Whose responsibility is it to teach her all that Dick would have?"  
  
"It was _his_. I guess he didn't think it was important enough to stick around for."  
  
"To make sure she doesn't forget him? To make sure she knows every great thing he was or could have been? Because I can't do those things, Tim. And Batman isn't stable enough to. If you don't...no one will. Are you that willing to let him be forgotten?"  
  
Tim sat down on the edge of the roof he had been prepared to jump off of. His movements were still tentative, still too much like a frightened cat that could be scared away. But his voice was sincere and steady when he looked up at Connor. "I don't want _anyone_ to forget the man Dick was."  
  
"Then how do Monday afternoons with our niece sound?"  
  
There was a pause, during which Connor was almost certain that Tim was choosing to put himself ahead of Lian, to finally close the door on the parade of people who had hurt him and pull away once and for all.  
  
If he had, Connor wouldn't have blamed him. It might have even been for the best. They certainly could use a replacement Batman, considering how unwell the first one was doing in the aftermath's of Dick's death.  
  
"Better make it Tuesdays," Tim said finally. "The scum tend to still be working overtime on Mondays in New York."  
  
Connor didn't tell Tim that he knew that already. He didn't mention the familiarity of the city and all the life that Connor had once had on those few precious moments he had shared with Kyle, back when that had still been a possibility.  
  
It wasn't worth mentioning. Connor had different priorities now. He had to be a ... _not a father._ Never would he be Lian's father. But he _would_ be her parent.  
  
At least with Tim's help he wouldn't be doing it alone.  
  
  



End file.
